Fire in the Hole!

Things have been a bit busy around here lately - both personally and professionally - but, here I am and ready to tell you a little story this morning! I am sharing this for several reasons, the main one being that I think every aspiring home (or professional) cook needs to understand that kitchen disasters happen to the best of us and when the unexpected happens, you do your best to roll with the punches and salvage your meal. The story begins like this: my husband's 38th birthday was last weekend and we decided to invite our parents over for dinner that evening. My husband has an odd fondness for Cornish Game Hens and so I have developed several different ways of cooking them for him. My personal favorite is to have the butcher at my favorite specialty foods store chop them in half, after which I just bring them home and lightly marinate them in whatever I am into on that particular day. I then grill them on my natural gas grill which saves my kitchen from being overheated during the hot afternoon. For my husband's birthday dinner, I had decided to marinate the halved Cornish Game Hens in a light Dijon-herb vinaigrette. I lovingly clipped basil, chives and tarragon out of my herb garden, added a couple of tablespoons of Dijon mustard, a splash of red wine vinegar and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. I generously seasoned each hen half with salt and pepper, then slathered on the marinade and let them sit while I fired up the grill. I planned to serve the hens with horseradish mashed potatoes and peas with caramelized pearl onions.

By the time the grill was heated and ready to go, most of the other prep work had been done. The onions were golden brown, crispy and sweet, just awaiting their addition to the pot of simmering peas; the potatoes were ready to be riced (pretty much my new favorite way to mash potatoes); and the Cornish Game Hens were seasoned with the tart and tangy marinade and ready to cook on the grill. I had ten hen halves, which I anticipated would take up most of my grill space, so I had the thing on full blast so as not to lose too much heat when I started cooking. I carefully arranged the halves on the grill grates, skin side down, closed the lid and left my husband and his father on the back porch to monitor the grilling process. I came back inside and began dealing with the potatoes and peas. Not five minutes passed before I turned around to look at the grill (which tends to smoke a bit when I do Cornish Game Hens on it - those things are a little fatty when you leave the skin on). I noticed a fair amount of fire in the bottom grill pan and also noticed that my husband and father-in-law were crouching down to get a better look at it. I thought to myself, "hmm...that is not what it is supposed to be doing". At that exact moment (or so it seemed), the fire when from small to kind of engulfing the grill pan. The grill starting belching out this thick, dark black and billowing cloud of smoke. I realized that my first reaction was a bit of an understatement and as I noticed the black smoke creeping into my kitchen, I ran to open the windows on the front of the house so I could avoid the obnoxious fire alarm from going off. My kids watched all of this with rapt attention and then started running around asking me if we needed to call the fire department. My mother-in-law distracted them while the rest of us dealt with the fire and they had a great time with the open windows (which lack screens right now), playing "apartment". (They were neighbors talking to each other out their windows.)

I walked outside and asked my husband, "are they f*****?" (I have a bit of a sailor mouth when it comes to food getting messed up in my kitchen. Also, I had spent almost $25 on those things and I kind of wanted them to turn out well, especially because it was my husband's birthday dinner.) Upon opening the grill, we waved away the remnants of the smoke and were horrified to find that the Cornish Game Hens were about as black as could possibly be. We examined them closely and decided that some of the damage the smoke had done could be washed off and the rest we would just eat around.

So, that is what I did. I took my lovingly prepared Cornish Game Hen halves back inside, scrubbed each one individually and placed them on a pan to roast in the oven to finish cooking. When they came out, I served them, as planned with mashed potatoes, peas and gravy and everyone at the table (including our two daughters) declared that they were very tasty. I have to admit that I was surprised by how good they did actually taste. To be sure, they were smokey and quite overcooked in spots, but they had crisp, crunchy skin and juicy, sweet meat that was, oddly enough, still fairly nicely seasoned. The Dijon-herb flavor was just about obliterated, but the resulting salty-smoke combination was not too bad.

As I said, kitchen disasters can happen to the best of us - especially those of us who, because we have professional training, think that we can make grills which are in sore need of cleaning/tuning up work for us. I knew that grill wasn't working right - the gas doesn't light immediately and I often throw matches into it to make it light (NOT smart, by the way) - but I decided to use it anyway. Professional training brings with it a sort of arrogance that, "hey. I know EXACTLY what I am doing", but it also creates the ability to, as I said before, roll with the punches and salvage what you can when things go wrong. Any professional chef will tell you that. They all have a thousand stories of what has happened to them and how they managed to pull off a spectacular meal anyway. For me and this time at least, my kitchen disaster happened in front of my family, so, as an audience, they were pretty forgiving in any case. We had a wonderful birthday dinner and I ended up with a good disaster story to tell. Until next time!

Leftoverpalooza!

Although I am writing this post almost one week after the aforementioned, "Leftoverpalooza", I am still just so darn excited about how I was able to transform a bunch of random bits and pieces that I needed to clear out of my refrigerator into a tasty, (somewhat) healthy dinner that all of my family members enjoyed thoroughly. We begin with the story of a recipe, which we (meaning my husband and myself), enjoyed long ago - a baked pasta dish with a sauce of pureed winter/butternut squash, covered in a crispy-crunchy bread crumb and Parmesan cheese topping. Now, the original recipe was meant to mimic the color, if not the specific flavor, of macaroni and cheese and, if I recall correctly, did not go over very well with the two children it was meant to impress.

This time, as I said, I was attempting to clear out the fridge and, with the original recipe in mind, I riffed on the veggie/mac 'n cheese beginning with some frozen chunks of butternut squash. I nuked those in the microwave with a little bit of water until they were thoroughly cooked and completely tender. While that was going, I started some salted water for about a pound of basic shell pasta. When the squash was ready, I mashed the chunks into a kind of stringy puree with the back of a fork and, decided, at the last second to grate and add the leftover hunk of reduced fat cheddar cheese (probably about 2 ounces) to the mix. I also had some lovely ham, leftover from the previous night's dinner at my mom's house, which I diced into small pieces, adding it to the cheese and squash mixture. Continuing with the "kitchen-sink" theme, I added about a 1/4 cup of heavy cream, leftover from an ice cream recipe, which turned the mixture into this incredibly luscious looking, pale orange sauce, which (I think) anyone would have been hard pressed to discern from a traditional bechamel based cheese sauce. I wasn't really sure how the stuff would taste, but, like I said, it looked darn good. For the topping, I chopped a bunch of leftover parsley, mixing it with some bread crumbs that I had in the freezer and some grated Parmesan cheese. When the pasta was al dente, I drained it, then tossed it with the squashy cheese sauce. I poured it into my prepared (read: coated the crap out of it with cooking spray) oven proof dish, topped it with the bread crumb mixture and put it into my preheated oven at about 350 degrees. The dish probably baked for 20 to 25 minutes and, when it came out, the sauce was bubbling and the bread crumb topping was delectably golden brown. Despite how good it looked, it was still down to how good it tasted.

We sat down at the table and both of my girls expressed their excitement at being served macaroni and cheese. They were a little concerned about the green flecks of parsley (or "leaves", as my younger daughter usually calls anything with chlorophyll), but they both agreed to try it. I put a little on both of their plates and was more than a little surprised when they both scarfed it down and requested seconds (my older daughter even came back for thirds). I tried it kind of skeptically myself - I really wasn't sure how the flavors of the squash and cheese would work together. I was amazed at how creamy and downright delicious the combination actually was! The squash was pretty overpowered by the sharpish flavor of the cheddar, but it lent the sauce the perfect hue of yellowish-orange that is always the marker of a good mac n cheese (according to my kids, at least). The ham provided a nice textural counterpoint with its chewy density and added a lovely, smokey and salty flavor to the dish. The bread crumb topping was toasty, slightly nutty and salty (from the Parmesan) and the parsley flecks perked up the taste and appearance of the dish with its fresh green color and flavor. The pasta was perfectly cooked - just slightly chewy and all the more luscious as it absorbed the beautiful sauce. In fact, those shells made the ideal sauce carrier - the ham pieces just nestled in for the ride to our mouths. Seriously, this little experiment was tasty. Not all of my attempts at creating delectable dishes out of random leftovers turn out this way, but this time, I got lucky. Unfortunately, everyone liked the dish so well, there were not any leftovers for me for lunch the next day, but goodness knows I would much rather have dinner heartily eaten. In fact, the pictorial evidence shown below is just before my husband consumed the final little bit. Maybe next time, I will remember to take a picture before we actually eat our meal.

Yowza

It has been far too long since I have posted anything on here and for that, I do apologize. My weeks have been filled with house repairs, getting ready for school and quite a few cakes and catering gigs, just to name a few things. What with all the extra time I have now (wink, wink), I am hoping to get back on here and post food thoughts/musings more frequently. I have just a few spare moments this afternoon, so here is what I am currently excited about in my little culinary sphere. I ordered a copy of America's Test Kitchen's Healthy Family Cookbook which should be here (hopefully) in a couple of weeks. For those of you that are not familiar with ATK, they are a group of culinary research professionals that publish a magazine, Cook's Illustrated, and have a couple of PBS TV shows - America's Test Kitchen and Cooks Country. They are amazing! They find a recipe, test the crap out of it and make adjustments as necessary so that EVERYTHING works like it is supposed to. No muss, no fuss - just follow their recipes and have amazing results every time. They actually delve into the science of food (which is how they make the recipes work), but they also take the time to review food products, gadgets, etc for taste, quality, and a host of other factors which saves time, money and frustration for those of us who practically live in the kitchen. The recipes in this particular cookbook are family favorites that have been tested and overhauled by ATK so you end up with fabulous food that is healthy. I can't wait! I am sorely in need of new dinner ideas for my family and I think this is just the ticket! Again, I should be posting more in the coming weeks, and I plan to share my recipe discoveries as they come along. Happy September tomorrow and look for new postings very soon!

More Fun with Fusion!

This post is somewhat belated - mostly because I have been slacking like you wouldn't believe on any number of items. I finally decided that today is the day that I get myself back on track - get up early, get some writing done and feel like I had been productive the rest of the day. That didn't quite work out since our alarm did not go off this morning, but here I am in the afternoon, blogging away, so I can at least scratch one thing off of my to-do list.

So, my newest food experiment actually took place last week (I said this was a belated post). In my last post, I talked about the possibility of using some leftover black beans to make some kind of Cuban inspired dish and, lo and behold, I actually did it! I called my creation, "Cuban Risotto", and it made a most satisfying vegetarian meal.

I started the dish by combining about a cup of short grain brown rice with a can of diced tomatoes, all of their juice and approximately one cup of water. As anyone who has ever cooked brown rice, especially the short-grained variety, knows, it takes A LOT of liquid when cooking on the stove top. (Tip: keep an eye on the rice during its almost hour-long cooking time. If it appears too dry and the kernels are not quite cooked, just add a little more liquid to the pot. Trust me, having rice that is a little on the moist side is infinitely preferable to having partially cooked rice kernels in your dish. Ouch!) While the rice was cooking, I heated (and honestly, continued cooking because they weren't quite done the first time) the black beans leftover from another meal. As those two pots bubbled on the stove, I chopped up a variety of peppers (red, green and a couple of particularly spicy anaheims from our garden), four cloves of garlic and a bunch of cilantro. I also sliced two ripe (read: almost blackened) plantains and set those aside. Once the beans were ready and the rice was almost there, I drained the liquid off of the beans and added them to the (still) cooking rice. I set that pan on a very low burner on the back of the stove and gave my full attention to the psuedo-recaito (a Latin American vegetable base of peppers, onions, garlic and cilantro) that awaited me. I started by sauteeing the peppers in a little bit of canola oil. Once those were nicely wilted and starting to brown, I added the garlic to keep it from burning. I sauteed that combo until the garlic became fragrant and then I dumped the whole caboodle into the waiting rice/beans pot. I added the chopped cilantro, mixed thoroughly and set the pot aside, off the heat and covered, to wait until the rest of the meal was complete.

In the same pan I used for the peppers and garlic, I heated about a quarter inch of canola oil and added the sliced plantains, taking care not to overcrowd the pan. Once each side of the plantain was nicely browned, I removed them from the oil, drained them on paper towels and lightly salted them with kosher salt. Once all the plantain slices were fried and accounted for, dinner was served!

The combination of the rice, beans and vegetables was hearty and delicious with just the right amount of kick from the peppers. Since both the rice and the beans were cooked properly (this time), they were soft and easy to chew, but retained just enough of their structure so that we were not gumming mush. The cilantro provided just enough brightness to lift the "risotto" out of its earthy foundations and the plantains on the side offered a salty-sweet, crunchy-creamy combination of flavor and texture that contrasted nicely with the smoothness of the rice dish. Overall, this one was a winner at our house - generally speaking, of course. The rice and beans were enjoyed by all, but my oldest daughter declared that she did not care for the plantains, though she would eat bananas by the boat load if I would let her. (To be fair, plantains are NOT bananas, and I still thought they would both enjoy them. Not so much, but that is okay.) So, Cuban Risotto may make a showing on our table again at some point. We shall see, but, until then, let the crazy fusion experiments continue!

New Job

Although I am taking an embarrassingly long time to post anything on my lovely little food blog, I just wanted all of my loyal readers to know (yes, all four of you) that I have recently taken on another writing gig. I am now the Austin French Restaurants Examiner for www.examiner.com. I am just getting started (I actually submitted my first article for review today), but I am pretty excited about the possibility of having my writing exposed to a wider audience. I will probably post my articles, especially since they will all relate to food, on my blog as well and I will attempt to continue writing about my personal culinary adventures. Hopefully, I will do said writing more often than, I don't know, once every couple of weeks. Geez. For someone who hopes to be a food writer and for someone who does actually eat every day, you would think I would find more time to post on here than I actually do. Oh, well. Perhaps I will have a little tidbit for you all in the next day or so - I am planning a creative use of leftover black beans for dinner tonight. It shall be in the vein of Cuban black beans and rice with fried plantains, but since I am doing all of this recipe-less, I am not entirely sure how it will turn out. No worries - we went to a birthday party this morning (yes, I made the cake) and I walked out with a lovely box of extra pizza. Should dinner be less than delectable, Domino's will sub just fine. Until next time, my friends!

Breakfast for Dinner

As I was making my grocery list this morning, I asked my daughters what they would like to have for dinner this evening. As per her usual request, my oldest shouted, "breakfast for dinner!" before her younger sister could even think of a particular food she would like to eat. Immediately following the first shout was, "bacon and eggs for dinner!" (My kids both could live on bacon alone.) I didn't even really have to hesitate before I agreed because, I too, love having breakfast for dinner. There is just something about flipping a meal on its head - particularly breakfast - that appeals to me. Apparently, I have, much like my own children, always loved breakfast for dinner nights. Ours usually was bacon and eggs with a little stack of toast that had always been freshly and generously buttered by my mother before she set it on the table. Ahhhh......the simple pleasures in life. In any case, since I am a chef and since I don't do anything, food-related at least, particularly simply, I asked my daughters if they would like plain, old bacon and eggs or if they would like.....wait for it.....breakfast quesadillas! I guess I sold it well, because they agreed quickly to the new menu item. Score!

Now, I have to give credit where credit is due here. I did not come up with the idea of breakfast quesadillas. I had breakfast with my dad a couple of months ago at Austin Java, a local coffee shop/cafe, and spied this on the menu. I thought it sounded really interesting, so I ordered it and ended up enjoying the heck out of meal. This is not a hard concept really - it is basically a potato, egg and cheese breakfast taco rejiggered into a....you got it....quesadilla! The tortilla was crispy, the eggs fluffy and hot, the cheese gooey and melty and the potatoes lightly caramelized. (By the way, Austin Java also has amazing salsa which was served with this dish. I am a bit of a salsa snob and I LOVE theirs.) Anyway, I decided to rip off their menu idea and try it at home.

I started by nuking a couple of red potatoes in the microwave for about two minutes per side. Basically, they were all but cooked when I took them out, scorching hot, four minutes later. I cubed them while I heated some canola oil in a skillet, then sauteed them for a couple of minutes until the cut sides turned a gorgeous crunchy brown. I pulled them from the heat, parked them in a bowl and used the same skillet to scramble a few eggs. While the eggs were cooking, I put some whole wheat tortillas down on a griddle, sprinkled them with cheddar cheese and then ladled the mostly set eggs over the top. I dotted the tops of the eggs with the cubed potatoes, crumbled some turkey bacon over that and finished them all with another dusting of shredded cheddar cheese. I pressed a second whole wheat tortilla over the top and....viola! Breakfast quesadilla! (Note: this all took a little bit longer than I had originally anticipated, so the bottom tortillas got slightly more browned and quite a bit crispier than I would have intended. Nevertheless, the end result was very tasty.) I cooked the first side, as I said, a little longer than I should have, but ultimately flipped them over easily since the cheese acted as a bit of a glue holding it all together, cooked the other side for a couple of minutes and served them cut into wedges. I even had some salsa (not as good as Austin Java's, but still) to eat with mine.

Verdict: the girls loved the breakfast tacos with a twist! Breakfast quesadillas were a hit tonight! As a matter of fact, my oldest kept saying, "mmmmm.....potatoes. I LOVE potatoes!" Apparently, that girl doesn't get enough tubers! So, another successful experiment this evening. I don't think it will take the place in my heart of that little buttered stack of toast, but it will probably come pretty close. Potatoes are delicious. Until next time, friends!

Less Complaining, More Cooking

So, I am sort of over my disappointment at not being chosen as a finalist in my last cooking contest attempt. It's cool, man. Really. Since I have moved on, I have decided to get more creative with my own cooking at home (trying to keep it as much in check as I possibly can so my kids will actually eat the food) and I have found a couple of other recipe contests to enter as well. So, to the creative cooking side of things, I present: Thai-inspired coconut shrimp pasta!

I started this dish in a completely different region of the world: Brazil. How do Brazilian and Thai cuisine intersect, you may ask? Well, in my head, of course! Last semester, one of my classes was International Cuisine and we were each assigned a former colony of the Portuguese empire. (Confused yet? I know this is convoluted, but stick with me, here.) In any case, one of the regions was Brazil and my classmate found an amazing shrimp soup called, Shrimp Moqueca. It is such a simple soup, yet so amazingly full of flavor that all of us fell in love with it immediately. It starts with a base of onions, bell peppers, garlic, tomatoes and chilies and is finished with coconut milk. The shrimp are simmered in this deletable concoction and the soup is served and finished with cilantro. Seriously - it is lightly sweet with a hidden spice that is not only surprising, but is also an incredibly delicious way to cut through the richness of the coconut milk. Yum.

Ok, so I considered making this soup because my kids LOVE shrimp and because I LOVE this soup. Then, I started thinking - they don't like spicy things and I don't like using full fat coconut milk. What to do? I definitely wanted to have a tomato, garlic, bell pepper base (mostly because I had a bell pepper that I needed to use), spiked with a teeny amount of spice and laden with light coconut milk. So, then that got me thinking about other coconut milk-based sauces and I remembered a Thai green curry recipe that I found on The Best Life website (www.thebestlife.com). That recipe called for (duh) Thai green curry, which I did not have and did not want to purchase. (Have you looked at the sodium levels on that stuff? Atrocious.) Anyway, what I came up with was a bit of a hybrid between these two recipes, as odd as the Brazilian-Thai combination might sound.

I started by caramelizing a small red onion in about a tablespoon of olive oil, with about a teaspoon of granulated sugar (to facilitate the caramelization). Once those were nicely browned, I added diced green bell pepper and sauteed the two together for about five minutes. I added a smidge of chili-garlic sauce and heated that with the vegetables, briefly. I then added a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes with garlic and allowed the liquid to reduce for a couple of minutes. All the while, I had a pot of boiling water going on the back of the stove, to which I added a couple of strips of lime zest. Once the water was nicely perfumed, I removed the lime zest and added a box of whole wheat linguine (standing in for Thai rice noodles). When the sauce reduced to the consistency I was looking for, I added about a tablespoon of Thai fish sauce, squeezed a whole lime into it and then added about a cup of organic, lite coconut milk. Immediately, the sauce bloomed into this gorgeous dusky rose, with peaks (pun intended) of bright, verdant green and deep, brick-red bubbling around in my pan. I am not sure there is anything better than a tomato cream sauce and this coconut one was no exception. I added the (previously frozen, peeled and de-veined) shrimp to the mix and let it simmer in the fragrant, sunset-colored liquid. By this time, the lime infused linguine was just about al dente, so I drained that and, as the shrimp began to turn opaque, threw it into the pot to finish cooking. I sprinkled the top with chopped cilantro and Thai basil (from our garden), mixed and served it.

The taste....well, the taste was pretty amazing, if I do say so myself. It was everything Thai food should be - lightly spicy, barely sweet, slightly tart and oh, so savory. The anise flavor of the basil and the herbal pungency of the cilantro set off all of the other flavors, which rather than fight each other to assert themselves individually, married together in a lovely fashion to create what I now realize was true fusion food. I mean, I started in Brazil, jumped over to Thailand and managed to bring in a little of Italy as well. How crazy is that? Wait. I think I mean, how crazy delicious is that?!?